1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to in-vehicle infotainment systems, and, more particularly, to in-vehicle infotainment systems used in conjunction with mobile phones.
2. Description of the Related Art
State of the art smartphones and other types of mobile devices offer a wide range of applications to the user. Many of those applications rely on databases inside or outside the mobile phone. For example, phone or email applications use an address book, and music applications access the information stored in a music collection.
State of the art in-vehicle infotainment systems (IVI) are able to access those databases in the mobile phone by using wireless or wired connections. In order to use, for example, the contact list, the calendar or the music collection stored in the mobile phone, the in-vehicle system has to provide applications that are capable of using that data. Thus, applications that are available on the mobile phone are replicated with similar applications running on the in-vehicle system. For example, an in-vehicle music player is needed to play the music stored in the phone. As another example, an email program running in the in-vehicle system is required to access the phone's address book.
The benefit of using the data of the mobile phone with applications running in the in-vehicle system is that those in-vehicle applications are specifically designed and adapted to the car environment. For example, the functionality and user interface/input controllers of in-vehicle applications are designed for use while driving. Applications in the mobile phone, on the other hand, are usually not designed for use within the car and often do not make allowances for reductions in the driver's attention due to his having to divide his attention between the driving task and operating the applications on the phone.
But state of the art in-vehicle systems do not have knowledge of what the user was doing with his mobile phone before entering the car. State of the art in-vehicle systems do not know what applications the user was using on his mobile phone and what information he entered in those applications. That leads to the situation that a driver needs to manually start applications in the in-vehicle system and then needs to enter the same information again into these applications in order to reproduce the state of the mobile phone. This necessity of manually starting applications in the in-vehicle system and then re-entering information is time consuming and distracts the driver from his driving task if performed while the car is moving.
What is neither disclosed nor suggested by the prior art is an in-vehicle infotainment system that has improved integration with a mobile phone such that the above-described disadvantages can be avoided.